Monday, April 20, 2009

calm down

Yes, yes. Oracle is buying Sun, which owns MySQL and Java. No, this is not the end of MySQL. You're being silly.

Oracle is about as open-source friendly as a huge proprietary software company can be, and has been since before it was cool. Oracle adores Linux, and started pushing it vigorously since about, hm, 2002? Oracle has been Java-crazy since that time, too. Oracle's marketing strategy has long been against lock-in - it wants to plug easily into a thriving open-standards economy, not to enclose and lock a walled garden. It's also been very easygoing about licensing, eager to see casual, non-paying users gaining familiarity with its products, knowing that those are the seeds that later big-money sales will come from. It doesn't try to catch and squeeze little fish, it feeds them fish food and waits for them to grow into whales. In short, you over there, slapping MySQL on your Linux box for your brother's home business? Oracle doesn't want to shut you down. Oracle loves you, has always loved you, and wants your love and trust for when you get big.

In fact, if anything, I'm a little disappointed that Oracle's (superb) marketing power, name recognition, and corporate respect will all benefit MySQL and Java... which is all fine and good, except that I'd rather see that gust of wind behind PostgreSQL and Python. (OTN's PyCon sponsorship warmed my heart, to be sure, but I wish there was a way to make ORACLE + PYTHON stop-the-presses news all around techland.)